The Young Galaxy
by Zet Sway
Summary: A collection of vignettes exploring the relationship between Captain Jack Harkness and Commander Vera Shepard, taking place during the events of the Mass Effect trilogy.
1. Rannoch

Before I begin, let me just say that this entire thing is **not linear**. I have a lot of affection for this pairing and I'm writing things as they come to me. Sorry in advance. Additionally, there is more to this than I've published and I'm operating under the assumption that Jack has been with the Normandy on and off since around the time Mass Effect begins.

If you're so lovely of a person that you've wandered in here not knowing anything about Torchwood or Jack, you should know that Jack is a man born in the 51st century on another planet. He traveled through time with the Doctor and there was an incident. Since that incident, Jack is unable to die. He experiences injury and 'death,' to a degree, but always returns to himself after a short time. It was easy to insert him into the Mass Effect timeline under the assumption that he simply lived long enough to get there. Also Jack is a_ really affectionate guy_ and would basically fuck anything.

Meanwhile, I have crossover headcanon that extragalactic travel was made possible by the reapers after the war, with the assumption that Shepard chose control.

Mass Effect and all associated characters belong to Bioware. Torchwood and all associated characters belong to the BBC. I make no money from this fanfiction.

* * *

Jack's expression was blank. Before him, the dusty browns and reds of Rannoch stretched endlessly into the horizon.

A reaper was dead. This was a victorious moment. But as the reaper's voice rumbled across the valley, into Jack's bones, the pieces started to come together.

Sentinels. Nearly two hundred years ago he had been a boy, hearing stories about the sentinels that carried humanity across the stars, away from Earth and through the galaxies. Stories about the sentinels and their shepherd.

Jack felt weak. Shepard was speaking, saying something to the sprawled out and broken machine that used to be a Reaper. But he didn't hear her. The reapers… the sentinels. One in the same. Jack was a product of this. A child of the world after this war.

He flinched at the sound of missile fire. Three quick bursts and the reaper was dead. Like he wished he was. Like he should have been long, long ago.

How was he supposed to face her after this? How could he smile and reassure Shepard and her team, knowing what sacrifices were to come, knowing what devastating losses they were sure to face?

Not long ago he had scoffed at the Illusive Man for thinking he could ever hope to control a power as massive as the reapers. But there, perched before another giant brought down, the man's words sank like a chill into Jack's bones.

_"I can control them, Shepard."_

He was wrong, of course. The Illusive Man had no chance of control. But Shepard did. And suddenly everything seemed to be falling apart.

Jack clenched his jaw and stared straight ahead as she approached him, hoping to all hell that she didn't see the glistening tears forming in his eyes. She couldn't know.

All too soon he knew he would weep for her.


	2. Liara

Jack aided Liara in obtaining Shepard's body, but he only just found out that Liara had planned to bring Shepard back.

Mass Effect and all associated characters belong to Bioware. Torchwood and all associated characters belong to the BBC. I make no money from this fanfiction.

* * *

Jack's heart sank.

Cerberus? Liara gave Shepard's body to the _Lazarus Project_?

"_What have you done_," he hissed. He felt his anger rising.

"Shepard is our only hope against the Reapers," Liara continued. "I would do anything to bring her back. The galaxy needs her."

_How fucking selfish_, Jack thought. How fucking selfish she was to drag Shepard back from the grave, and how even more selfish of her to ask the dead to bear this responsibility. Vera Shepard was dead. She did her part, gave more than enough. He felt numb, enraged, aching with empathy and hurt. No one should have to go through what he went through. No matter how many he had loved and lost, he wouldn't wish that fate on anyone. Doctor T'soni, for all her years and education, was a selfish bitch.

"I hope you weren't hoping for my help with anything else," he said through his teeth.

"Jack, please don't-"

"We're done here. You could never even hope to understand what you're about to put that woman through."

"Jack, we've both seen what the Reapers are capable of. Shepard and her crew are the only ones who even see the coming threat, the only ones with the power to do anything about it and-"

"And _nothing,_" he spat. "_You _do something about it. Shepard already gave her life defending this galaxy but I guess that wasn't good enough for you. You had to drag her back to make her do it all over again because _you're _not good enough to 'do anything about' the Reapers. We're done."

Jack strode off the ship, jaw clenched with rage. He didn't know where he was going, but right then, anywhere would do. Away from the crowds, away from people, away from everything.


	3. Shepard

Jack and Shepard are sleeping together also.

Mass Effect and all associated characters belong to Bioware. Torchwood and all associated characters belong to the BBC. I make no money from this fanfiction.

* * *

Sex with Jack is like nothing she'd ever experienced.

It isn't that it's incredible or earthshattering or any of that. It just _is._

Jack is boisterous, an incessant flirt with a massive ego. He's charming, he's witty, and all of that. But underneath it all, underneath everything he projects, he's a softer creature.

She surprises herself by making the first move. He's leaving her cabin, flashing his signature smile and turning to the door when the thought crosses her mind. There's so little she knows about 'Captain' Jack. Nobody really seems to know what he's the captain of, for one. She doesn't know if he has someone in his life. But the social anxiety of his potential rejection of her fades away when she considers him, that smile, and the impossible truths they've uncovered together.

So she asks him to wait, and when he turns, closes the space between them and kisses him full on the mouth. Everything is easier from that point on.

They stumble onto the bed, lips locked, hands everywhere until they're tangled together on the sheets. Breathy sighs fill the silence of the cabin and they hardly notice the lights dimming as the night cycle begins.

She'd be lying if she said she didn't expect fireworks and the most amazing sex of her life. But somehow it's not surprising that his "fireworks" are something altogether different than what she had anticipated - his intuition astounds her. She's had a few lovers, and it's been a while since her last, but she's never had a man as attentive as Jack. It doesn't take him long to unravel her.

Focused on her most subtle reactions, he finds sensitive places on her body that she hadn't even been aware of. Whispering touches at the base of her spine, the inside of her wrist, have her wired, electrified, lost to the moment and sensation until he pulls away and she remembers to breathe. When had she closed her eyes? She's enraptured with him - like seeing him for the first time. He's handsome and naked, vulnerable, even, and she surges onto him. And their night is just beginning.

Whatever he was Captain of, it doesn't matter now. Titles aren't important. Sex is as natural to this man as breathing. Eyes squeezed shut and head thrown back as he finds release, he's the very picture of pleasure.

Later, she lets him stay. He won't sleep, but he's content to lie next to her until she's sleeping soundly.


	4. Shore Leave

I was prompted to write Jack and Shepard's thoughts on death and rebirth.

Mass Effect and all associated characters belong to Bioware. Torchwood and all associated characters belong to the BBC. I make no money from this fanfiction.

* * *

Jack wasn't one for opulence, but he loved Shepard's newly acquired apartment on the Citadel. He had to admit that Anderson had great taste.

The place looked as though it had hardly been lived in. With a pang of guilt, Jack supposed it looked that way because it_ wasn't_ lived in. The man he had known for so long was still on Earth, still being attacked by Reapers, and people were dying every second. And here he was, digging through Anderson's fridge looking for something to eat and a cold drink. Jack sighed. Mandatory shore leave at a time like this? What a waste of human life.

Vera had vanished into the first shower she found as soon as they walked in. Jack tried to make himself comfortable.

He hated downtime. A long time ago, when he'd lived in the Torchwood hub, there was always something to be done. On the Normandy there was always something to be done. Here, he sat in someone else's house twiddling his thumbs, watching the cars fly by outside enormous windows that would have been better suited for looking at the outdoors. Downtime allowed his thoughts to wander in a bad way.

He kicked his shoes off and listened to the almost-silence. Focused on the little things. Somewhere in the apartment he heard the soft trickling of a fountain. A fire flickered beneath the mantle. The cars hummed by the window, casting shadows and refracting light as they passed. Little things distracted him from reality and his endless vault of memories.

He was relieved when Shepard finally sat down beside him, hair still wet, dressed comfortably in a pair of shorts and a camisole.

"Nice place. You should really try the shower. Oh, and there's a hot tub."

"A hot tub? Yeah?"

"Big enough for the whole crew."

Jack laughed softly but his mind was elsewhere. He pulled Vera close to his side and stared off at nothing. For a while, they were silent.

"You never told me what it was like," Jack said after some time had passed.

"What what was like?"

"Being dead for two years."

"Well," she said as she adjusted herself, having sprawled out on the couch with her head in his lap, "I don't know how for how much of those two years I was actually _dead._"

"You know what I mean."

"I didn't think you'd want to know. It's not like you've never been dead before."

"I've never been dead for that long."

Vera was quiet for a little while. "I don't like to think about it," she said, finally. "It was like… I felt like I had slept for a really long time but I didn't get any rest. Like I woke up more tired than when I went to sleep. I felt the years." She looked away from him, paused again. "When I woke up I just _knew_ something was wrong. Like when you wake up late for something and you already know you're late before you look at the clock. But worse."

"What did you see while you were asleep?" Asleep, he told himself. It was easier to believe death was just like sleeping.

"I don't remember anything. There's just a gap in my memory. One minute I was suffocating in space, and the next I was on an operating table. I didn't even know I had died, I thought someone must have rescued me just in time. But I still knew something was wrong."

Jack considered her words. He supposed it hadn't been much different for him the first time he had died. But waking up alone on that cold battlefield, he knew there was no way his life had been saved.

"What do you think happens to us when we die?" she said softly.

"There's nothing." The words left his mouth before he even had a chance to think about them.

"I wonder, if we never stayed dead, did we ever truly die?"

Jack had to smile at her positive outlook. "Then maybe Ianto is in a better place."

Shepard smiled with him. "And Kaidan. And Thane."

"Thane," Jack sighed. "It would be great to have him here right about now. Always seemed so sure of his afterlife."

"You think he was right?"

"I don't know about the afterlife being an ocean." Jack sat back, stretching his arms across the back of the sofa. "He used to say'your body is dust.' I kinda liked that. Like we're all stardust."

"Maybe we'll be reincarnated as dirt," Shepard giggled.

Jack actually laughed at that. Dirt. "I can't say I'd mind being dirt for a little while. Not after all this. I think I've lived too much."

Shepard couldn't help herself. Overwhelmed with the thought of living a lifetime as _dirt_, she lost herself to uncontrollable laughter, and Jack laughed with her. "It's that time of night," she snorted.

"I think it's time for bed," Jack said with a smile. "When being dirt sounds more appealing than fighting Reapers, I think we've been up for entirely too long."

Vera was still laughing when they climbed into bed together.


End file.
